Atlanta, Georgia – 3:13 AM


Kenyatta Briggs didn’t answer the first call.


Or the second.


Talia paced the foyer, her fingers tight around the phone, her nerves unraveling. The body still lay upstairs—Simone had zip-tied the intruder’s wrists, but he was unconscious, bleeding out fast. They couldn’t stay here much longer.


“Call him again,” Simone said, standing near the door, pistol now holstered but ready.


Talia hit redial.


On the third ring, Kenyatta picked up. “Yo… who is this?”


“It’s Talia Monroe. Marcus’s fiancée.”


A pause. “It’s three in the morning.”


“I know what you did in Miami,” she snapped. “And I know about Isaiah Reed. Don’t hang up.”


Silence stretched across the line. Then:


“…where are you?”


“I’m at my house. But I won’t be here long.”


“If you’re smart, you won’t be on the phone either,” Kenyatta said, voice suddenly cold. “People are listening.”


“Then meet me,” she said. “Face to face. No Marcus. No games. You have one hour. Or I go public.”


Another long pause.


“Send me a location.”


Simone pulled up the car—Talia’s black BMW X5—near a closed construction site in Vine City, half-buried in fog and shadows. The skeletal frame of a luxury apartment building stood unfinished in the distance. It was one of Marcus and Kenyatta’s upcoming developments.


“Fitting place for a secret,” Simone muttered.


Talia stepped out and adjusted her coat. “If I don’t come back out in fifteen minutes—”


“I come in like a damn SWAT team.”


Talia nodded and headed through the broken gate.


Kenyatta was waiting near a stack of pallets, gold chains tucked under his hoodie, eyes bloodshot like he hadn’t slept in days.


“You came,” he said.


She folded her arms. “Tell me about Isaiah.”


He gave her a bitter smile. “Isaiah was a revolutionary. Thought he could expose everything—Marcus’s backdoor deals, the shell companies, even the way we were laundering through the developments. He got greedy. Or maybe just scared.”


“So you killed him?”


“No,” Kenyatta said flatly. “Marcus did. He set him up with that overdose. Then used his connections to bury the story. But Isaiah had backups. Files. A ledger.”


Talia’s breath caught. “And where are they?”


“Somewhere in that house of yours, probably. Isaiah sent them to a burner address registered to Marcus. The idiot probably never even knew.”


She stepped closer. “Someone broke into my house tonight. Tried to kill me. I want to know who he was.”


Kenyatta’s jaw clenched. “If he had a chess piece tattoo, that’s one of Marcus’s guys. He runs a crew—low-profile, ex-military, all marked by different pieces. Knights. Rooks. Bishops. They do surveillance, cleanup, intimidation.”


“He’s building an army,” Talia whispered.


“He already has one.”


Then Kenyatta glanced around, suddenly alert.


“You need to go. Now.”


“Why?”


“Because if Marcus knows you’re talking to me… he’s already coming.”


Talia ran back to the car. Simone was waiting, engine running.


“Drive,” Talia gasped.


Simone hit the gas.


As they sped down the empty street, Talia looked in the side mirror.


A pair of headlights had just turned the corner.


They were being followed.


Again.